I have just returned from a brilliant trip to London, where I went to my first Norwich City away match at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

The plan was to make an event of it, so instead of going straight there and straight back on the coach with other fans I went on the train on Tuesday morning, stayed in a hotel in Finsbury Park and came back on Wednesday lunchtime.

I was aware that my hotel was within walking distance of the ground, but I didn’t expect to be able to see it from my window!

I walked to the stadium well before kick off, to properly take in the atmosphere. I had been outside the Emirates once before, but that was during the day when there was no one around. It was a different sight all lit up with thousands of people there.

I made my way to the end where my fellow Norwich fans were going to be sitting, and immediately felt a warmth come over me seeing yellow shirts and hearing familiar songs – I was amongst my own people! With an hour to go before kick off, I went inside and found my seat, giving me my first sight of the pitch.

Before long the Norwich players came out to warm up at our end, to great applause. There is a real feeling of togetherness about the club at the moment. The fans are right behind the players, the players are putting the effort in for the fans and they are buying into what the manager is trying to do. It’s lovely to see. There were particularly loud cheers for James Maddison, who scored the winner in the derby on Sunday.

Norwich’s goalkeepers Angus Gunn and Michael McGovern warm up

The Norwich players preparing for the game

Arsenal have a sort of TV show on the big screens inside the stadium for pre-match, half time and post-match. I don’t really think it works. I’ve seen it done at cricket grounds, and often it’s hard to hear the presenter and a lot of the time you don’t want to because they are really annoying. Arsenal’s presenter didn’t win any friends amongst the Norwich fans by introducing us as Ipswich! That’s pretty much the worst thing you can say about us.

Then it was the match itself. You probably know that the game went all the way to extra time, with the eventual score being Arsenal 2-1 Norwich. The Norwich players put in a very good performance, going in front in the first half when Josh Murphy finished nicely after running onto a great Maddison pass and defending excellently until the 86th minute when a young guy I’d never heard of called Eddie Nketiah tapped in from a corner 15 seconds after coming on as a substitute for Arsenal. He then scored the winner in the first half of extra time. Norwich had come agonisingly close to pulling off an upset – one they would have deserved – but it wasn’t to be.

I was proud of the team, though, and very proud to be in the crowd. The nearly 9,000 Norwich fans that were there put the Arsenal fans to shame. Boxer and City fan Anthony Ogogo says he was racially abused by one of our number last night, which is totally unacceptable and that person is merely a sad individual who has nothing to do with this wonderful football club. I certainly didn’t hear anything untoward, and I think we represented the city brilliantly.

My first experience of seeing Norwich play on another team’s turf was one I’ll never forget, and one I hope to repeat in the future. We may not have won, we may be out of the cup, but I got a real sense that the club is in good shape at the moment and that if we can carry on performing like we did on Tuesday night then we can achieve something in the league this season.